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Screams and shots echoed fro on in there?" she said, springing to her feet and pulling unshots and left class I just knew you had to be involved solanced at the time "Good lord, Justin, it’s not even lunchtime yet What did you do?"

"Brad Nichols is a va? That’s him and his buddies" I pointed back at the locker roo the sheriff, the police chief, the principal, and Coach Burgundy"

Elyssa’s ripped her shoulders "Soot black veins all in his skin and he’s gone nuts"

She gasped, her "

"He’s not quite asone Brad told me Maximus turned him"

"Idiot!" Elyssa slapped the back of a hand into the other pal people and then cutting thehtened as more screams erupted "We have to end this madness, but I don’t have a sword onand he bites any of theht?"

She nodded and headed for the locker roounshot popped and a single wail of terror ended abruptly I had the feeling ere too late Brad staggered fro froed toward ave out, and dropped to his knees

"Screw you, Case," he snarled Blackened veins pulsed in his skin and he groaned in pain, hands grasping his face as he writhed and shuddered "Make it stop Make it stop! Tell them to shut up, shut up Shut up!" His pleas ended in a frantic screa popped Brad shuddered as blood poured from a hole in his throat Then he fell forward in a heap Sheriff Skinner stood in the doorway, one hand clutching a bloody wound in his shoulder Then he saw od’s name was he, Case?"

"You wouldn’t believe e flushed Skinner’s face as his lips curled back into a terrible snarl He had the radio still clutched in his other hand but wires dangled froirlfriend’s h" He aier

Time seemed to slow to a crawl Elyssa had frozen at his last sentence as her mind probably processed the horror of what he’d said I dove at her as the gun exploded Pain ripped into the side ofscreanored the pain Rolled to un athappened His bullets had run out So had his ti into hiainst the side of the concrete building and I could have sworn I heard every bone in his body crunch just before he slid to the ground and into a jelly-like heap of flesh

Elyssa fuh her pockets "A phone I need a phone!" I raced inside the building and grabbednore the broken bodies and spattered blood painting the walls The muscle where my neck joined the shoulder ached with an intensity that nearly overwhelmed my senses, but I pushed it aside Elyssa’s

I raced back outside, put the battery in the phone, and turned it on Elyssa took it and dialed a nus, a wo

"Mom?" Elyssa said

"Elyssa?" Leia’s voice was filled with relief "Where have you been?"

"No ti to kill you"

"Youlot? I knocked him out and cuffed his What’s going on? How did you know about this?"

"I--I don’t know exactly They were trying to kill Justin and--"

A long sigh sounded "Honey, I love you, even after what you did to me Don’t you think it’s time to end this childishness and come home?"